African World Festival

The African World Festival has fallen on tough times in recent years, as financial difficulties forced organizers to scrap the three-day festival in 2008 and 2009. It returned last year as a daylong event, and keeps that format this year. What it lacks in length, though, the event makes up for with a remarkably rich lineup of jazz, blues, funk and gospel. Among the headliners are Charlie Wilson, the former singer for The Gap Band who has reinvented himself as a solo artist and hip-hop hook singer; jazz vibraphonist Roy Ayers; jazz flutist Najee; and soul singer Clarence Carter, of “Strokin'” infamy.